Electronic pages, such as hypertext documents accessible via public computer networks, have become targets of popular viewing for reasons ranging from information to entertainment. For example, some electronic pages are viewed millions of times per day by a similar number of viewers. Moreover, it has become common for such pages to be dynamically generated in response to viewing requests, for example, to ensure that the page contains the latest content and/or to customize the page to the viewer. In fact, it is not uncommon for large and complex computer systems to be principally dedicated to the dynamic generation of electronic pages.
For reasons including the increasing volume of page views, the ability to customize and target advertisements, and the ability to obtain detailed advertisement response data, advertisers have become increasingly attracted to advertising on electronic pages. Incorporation of appropriate advertisements from multiple advertisers, in co-ordination with various advertising budgets, has itself become a sophisticated and complex part of electronic page generation. Indeed, it is not uncommon for large and complex computer systems to be principally dedicated just to advertising-related aspects of electronic page generation, and for electronic page owners to outsource those advertising-related aspects to organizations that maintain such systems. Furthermore, the electronic advertisements have themselves become sophisticated and complex. For example, advertisements may adapt themselves to a viewer, interact with a viewer, and/or interact with other advertisements.
While providing benefits to advertisers and viewers, all this sophistication and complexity can cause problems. For example, there is often a need to preview and/or test advertisement appearance and behavior in various viewing contexts to ensure that the advertisement contributes to viewer experience as intended. The sophistication and/or complexities of the electronic page generation systems can make a duplicate preview and/or test environment impractical, but it is undesirable to expose members of the general public to advertisements that are still under development. Conventional heavyweight authentication schemes can be cumbersome for controlling advertisement previews. On the other hand, some lightweight schemes fail to provide for sufficient control over previews.
Same numbers are used throughout the disclosure and figures to reference like components and features.